Weekend roundup for 29 October
Featuring secret police centres, guitar solos and sausage roll swings
As you can tell from our banner image, The Horror Show! has opened at Somerset House this week, “examining how ideas rooted in horror have informed the last 50 years of creative rebellion in Britain.” Elsewhere the most horrific thing to happen to London was the reappointment of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary, and therefore as one of the people tasked with holding the Met to account as it attempts to restore its reputation.
Mercifully, this week’s roundup is relatively free of Westminster news. Instead we’ve got some information on what you might be breathing in when you get on the Tube, secret police bases for the Chinese communist regime on our high streets, another London-inspired Lego creation, news of Essex’s most slebby restaurant opening in the West End and a look at a camp horror classic from the 70s.
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News bits
🚇 It’s not just the resident of 10 Downing Street that’s changed in the last seven days. Those RMT strikes we told you about last Saturday have also shifted dates to avoid a clash with the Royal British Legion’s Poppy day. That means the RMT national rail strikes will now take place on 5th, 7th and 9th November and the London Underground strike will happen on Thursday 10th.
🚆 Sadiq Khan and Andy Lord (TfL’s interim commissioner) were out and about this week celebrating Bond Street station opening on the Elizabeth line. They were also answering questions about the future of TfL, including ‘Will TfL’s long-term funding deal be scuppered by the revolving door at 10 Downing Street?’ (“extremely unlikely” according to Lord), and ‘How high will next year’s fare hike be?’ (we’re looking at “a double-digit rise” says Sadiq).
😶🌫️ A new study of the air quality on the eastbound Piccadilly Line platform at South Kensington has looked at “the chemistry of the smallest particles, which can go deep into the lung and potentially damage cells”. The team found “tiny amounts of ultrafine particles, including iron, manganese and traces of chromium and toxic organic matter” and recommended “that consideration is given to improving ventilation on the London Underground where possible”.
🚬 It sounds like the new Met Commissioner might be in favour of decriminalising cannabis. Mark Rowley was asked about his stance by Green Party London Assembly member Caroline Russell this week, and in reply he said that “with certain types of crime, where you have the right conditions regarding the nature of the victim and the offender, that diversion creates higher victim satisfaction and lower recidivism,” and when “you’ve got both those things it seems to be a bit of a no brainer.” The Mayor was less effusive about the idea when he was asked in a separate session, which is weird since he launched an entire commission to look into the idea earlier this year.
🏗️ The public inquiry into whether or not the Marks & Spencer building on Oxford Street should be redeveloped, got underway this week. OnLondon has a good roundup of the various arguments and issues that will be centre stage over the next two weeks, while The Guardian reports on Selfridges’ new owners throwing their support behind the “plan to raze and rebuild” the store.
🚘 The Times (paywall alert) this week reported on some new Department for Transport figures that show “that total vehicle miles driven in the ten inner London boroughs that introduced LTNs or equivalent schemes in 2020” have gone up by more than those boroughs that did not introduce LTNs. The paper has asked the DfT what might explain the difference in miles driven “but it provided no answer”.
🇨🇳 An investigation by Spain-based NGO Safeguard Defenders has revealed that there’s “at least 54” Chinese-run ‘secret police centres’ operating in 21 countries “with at least two found in London and one in Glasgow”. The organisation claims that the Scottish location is registered at the same address as Loon Fung, “one of the city’s oldest and best-known Chinese restaurants” which has led to the restaurant having to deny that it is a secret police base for the Chinese communist regime. It looks like the two London locations did appear in this Times article but have since been removed. We’re going to err on the side of caution and just say that one’s in Croydon and one is in Hendon.
🗳 If you’ve been around Seven Sisters, Brixton, Herne Hill, Stockwell or Whitechapel in the past week you might have seen some defaced/improved adverts calling for a general election. The Big Issue has some photos of the ‘brandalism’.
🛺 Westminster Council are playing a savvy game. Having exhausted the ‘anti sweet shop’ well they’ve moved on to the issue of “unlicensed and unsafe” rickshaws that plague our streets with their “excessive fare charges and noise”. In order to combat this “dangerous” plague of pedicabs Westminster has come up with… some posters and leaflets.
🛏️ The London rental crisis has reached its inevitable nadir: private companies milking the situation for profit. SpareRoom has been running ads on the Tube encouraging homeowners to make a bit of extra cash by renting out their spare room… for £800 a month. The ads actually point out that “demand for rooms more than doubled… so you won’t be short of people to choose from”. Classy.
Art and culture bits
🏠 Property porn of the week: This 1960s modernist duplex apartment in Cliff Road Studios, NW1 which once “featured in the cult 1970s crime show The Professionals”.
✊ This Friday will mark the 40th anniversary of the start of the British black arts movement and to commemorate that moment over 50 artists gathered at the Black Cultural Archives in London to have their photograph taken. The Guardian was there and spoke to some of the artists about how they “made a space for conversations that weren’t being had”.
🍿 Also this week It’s Nice That spoke to Abiba Coulibaly, the founder of the Brixton Community Cinema about how she has created a “welcoming space in which anyone is invited and popcorn is provided” (in an empty retail unit in the market) and curated “a programme that traverses the cinematic wonders of the globe”.
🪩 South London is getting a brand new club in the building that used to be East Brixton railway station. Loki is a 250-capacity club that’s run by the people from Lewisham’s Fox & Firkin pub who are promising to prioritise “extended sets, b2bs, top notch system and not ridiculously expensive ticket prices.” Loki opens on November 2, and there’s more details on line up for the first few weeks over at Resident Advisor.
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